Anyhoos, first off something in regards to my last post. It seems that building management noticed that people were irritated by the never ending alarm testing on Friday, so to make up for it they are...giving away free ice cream! Aww aren't they sweet? On Valentine's day they handed out roses to everyone walking through the building, and on Easter they had the Easter Bunny come in and hand out candy to everyone who worked in the building. What sweethearts (yes it's true, I am so easily bought).
On to my second item, airport taxes. Shaista and I have been looking at ticket prices to the U.S. (just for fun). It's pretty irritating when airport taxes and fees cost more than the actual price of the flight! I decided to take a good look at the different types of taxes/surcharges being laid out and one of them actually reads September 11 Security Fee.
Yeah.
I went on the website of the Transportation Security Administration (part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security) and found this in way of an explanation:
The September 11 Security Fee is imposed on passengers of domestic and foreign air carriers for air transportation that originates at airports in the United States. The fee, which is collected at the time the ticket is bought, is $2.50 per enplanement and is imposed on not more than two enplanements per one-way trip. Changes to the travel itinerary may result in either additional fees or a refund. Passengers who believe they are entitled to a refund should contact the airline which sold the ticket. The fees are collected by the direct air carriers, who must remit the fees to the Transportation Security Administration on a monthly basis.I don't even understand what one enplanement is, let alone "two enplanements per one-way trip". The passage basically says to me they want more money to beef up security *cough question people cough*. However, shouldn't this already be taken care of? Are they saying that before this fee was charged, no security measures were in place? Or is the money generated from this charge used "for questioning" in those special circumstances where people are singled out *cough racial profiling cough*?
http://www.tsa.gov/research/fees/passenger_fee.shtm
Or maybe I'm just a simpleton who doesn't know enough about the U.S. political, economical and social structure to be making broad claims. Does anyone out there have any thoughts on this? I bet someone is itching to play devil's advocate.
You know you love me,
xoxo
Awake Girl.
6 comments:
Usually I'd love playing Devil's Advocate, but with the US and their crazy policies, I can't be bothered to explain them.
I'm guessing that enplanement is the act of getting on the plane. It isn't really a word, its something some genius came up with to make our lives more difficult.
devils advocate: Me! Me!
I think they named it that to give the public a (false?) sense of security as they buy their tickets. The more that they see that the airports are making an effort, the safer they feel and the more they are willing to pay.
How about it just being another way for airports to suck more money out of us? They could have just re-named the existing fees to something that sounds more safety oriented. By including Sept 11 in there, isn't it giving out a negative connotation?
The US government wanted to milk the Sept 11 disaster for all it was worth. They are making sure that people don't forget about it. That's why they call it the Sept 11 fee. So every time an American travels within the States, they are reminded of the crazy Moslems that attacked their nation and scared the sh*t out of them.
It propagates the nationalist agenda and rationalizes the need for American troops being in places where they don't belong.
There's also a Fuel Surcharge or something...
* Cough...NO COmment
:-$
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